The premier cricket league of India, IPL, whose games are being watched by millions of cricket fans in India and around the world is now in the news for all wrong reasons. The issue of Tharoor and the Kochi IPL team has snowballed into a major controversy.
IPL Commissioner Lalit Modi’s public spat with Minister of State for External Affairs Shashi Tharoor on the matter turned into a political storm and an income tax nightmare for the IPL. Modi’s tweets on the identity of Kochi stakeholders triggered off the furore.
The IPL Kochi issue rocked the Parliament with MPs alleging that attempts were being made to convert black money into white through the League. Craze for the league matches reached feverish pitch this week with finals scheduled on Sunday (April 25) in Navi Mumbai. MPs, during Zero Hour, hailed Tharoor’s resignation but said the buck should not stop here but the real issue was attempts of the interested groups to convert black money into white by participation in the game.
IPL Commissioner Lalit Modi was quizzed by I-T officials over financial dealings and share holding patterns of the cricketing body and several places in the city were visited by tax sleuths to find out details of bidding process.
The IPL has changed the character of the game and traditionally five days of Tests and one-day matches were played. Ever since the game had got confined to 20 overs on each side, the dimension of gambling had increased manifold. MP Das Gupta said India has been a cricket-loving nation and thus its promotion was never in doubt. However, the promoters of IPL had capitalised this sentiment and it was being increasingly made into a marketable product and sold for filling the coffers of the few.
On Tuesday the Finance Minister announced in the Lok Sabha a thorough probe into all affairs of the IPL. Meanwhile, the Dubai-based Sunanda Pushkar, a close friend of Shashi Tharoor, gave up her stake in the IPL Kochi franchise amid a row involving Shashi Tharoor.
Just like Tharoor she has also been dismayed by the unpleasant publicity surrounding her involvement in the IPL Kochi franchise.
–Agencies–